tectonic
Other forms: tectonically
No, it’s not the latest electro-dance craze from Japan; the word tectonic refers to the earth's crust and the big hunks of it that shift around.
Even though it’s popular with the geology crowd, tectonic comes from the Greek word for "building." That can help you remember that the earth's crust consists of the building blocks we live on — the continents. Tectonic plates are the large sections of the earth’s surface that shift. If you live in a part of the world that sits on the edge of a tectonic plate, like the San Andreas Fault in California, you’ve probably felt an earthquake or two.
-
pertaining to the structure or movement of the earth's crust“tectonic plates”“tectonic valleys”
-
of or pertaining to construction or architecturesynonyms: architectonic
- MLA
- APA
- Chicago
Vocabulary lists containing tectonic
Words selected by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionaries. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
Want to get to the epicenter of this common natural disaster? Learn these words related to earthquakes.
Can you tell a crevasse from a hole in the ground? If not, you might want to learn these words for the many forms that land can take. This list is a real butte!